Philosophy and Methodology

When the enemy is at the gates, the individual abdicates his self-reliance and places himself unreservedly under the direction of the captain; he g

Carl Menger, from his classic treatise, on the origins of the means of payment.

This audio Mises Daily is narrated by Floy Lilley.

The thought mechanisms that lead some people to like (or, as economists say, have preference for) gambling are of no more economic interest than the reasons why some people like going to soccer games while others like to stay at home. Answering such questions may be a job for psychologists, but it is not one for economists.

Democracy may be a self-limiting disease, as civilization itself seems to be. There are thumping paradoxes in its philosophy, and some of them have a suicidal smack.

"Bastiat knew what most educated people never learn, that the source of all injustice in society stems from violations of freedom."

"The Aquinas–John of Paris–Locke view is the 'labor theory' (defining 'labor' as the expenditure of human energy rather than working for a wage) of the origin of property, not a labor theory of value."

The unseen effect that is missing in his "Broken Window" analysis is the diversion of time and energy from a community-enhancing endeavor (the unseen) to one of restoration (the seen).

If an omnipotent authority has the power to assign to every individual the tasks he has to perform, nothing that can be called freedom and autonomy is left to him. He has only the choice between strict obedience and death by starvation.

"Nagel thinks that people in society are morally bound to each other in ways that generate egalitarian obligations."

It seems there is a terrible price to be paid for genius.